Economic History

J.J.N. McGurk describes how vanity and the ambitions of families and religious houses prompted the widespread invention of documents upon property and genealogy.

Kenneth Woodbridge describes the letters of Sir Richard Hoare, Banker, Goldsmith and Lord Mayor of London, to his sons.

William Seymour describes the first hundred years in the rise to power of the East India Company.

George A. Rothrock introduces the son of a Protestant engraver, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier; a dealer in gems, Tavernier made six important journeys to Persia, India and Tonkin during the reign of Louis XIV

A.L. Rowse finds that for more than 200 years Cornwall has been making an important contribution to British pottery.

An international merchant, Jacques Coeur became banker to the court of Charles VII of France. By 1450, writes A.R. Myers, Couer had reached a magnificent height of prosperity

Just when the great merchant-banker had reached the zenith of his career, writes A.R. Myers, Jacques Couer was suddenly disgraced and imprisoned. Three years later, he was able to escape and took refuge, first in Provence, then in Rome with a sympathetic Pope.

C.T. Allmand describes the economy of medieval military history, and how Chaucer’s “parfit gentil knight”, on his pilgrimage to Canterbury, was probably sustained by the prizes won in foreign wars.

Michael Langley writes how, as early as 1620, an English traveller wrote an enthusiastic report on the wealth of the Gambia and its commercial possibilities.

George Woodcock describes how Malacca was once a city so rich that “its merchants valued garlic more highly than gold,” and how it has slowly dwindled in wealth and importance since the middle of the seventeenth century.